


offer

by ndnickerson



Category: Nancy Drew - Carolyn Keene
Genre: 1930s, Anticipation, Established Relationship, F/M, Marriage Proposal, Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-19 03:57:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22771531
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ndnickerson/pseuds/ndnickerson
Summary: Ned does a favor for Nancy, which leads to a more frank conversation than they usually have.
Relationships: Nancy Drew/Ned Nickerson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	offer

"Hello, Hannah."

Hannah Gruen gave Ned a wide, genuine smile as she stepped back, motioning him inside. "Come on in out of the heat! You're here to see Nancy?"

"I was hoping to," Ned replied, stepping into the Drews' front room. The windows were open, so at least it was marginally cooler than the blazing heat outside.

"She didn't expect to be back until dinnertime. I'm sorry." Hannah bustled toward the kitchen. "But I can offer you some lemonade."

"Thank you." The radio was on, and Hannah smiled as the next song started, taking ice out of the tiny freezer compartment and dropping it into a glass. Ned sighed in anticipation as he wrapped his hand around the frosty lemonade a moment later.

"How's your summer?"

"Eventful." He had been able to help Nancy investigate one of her mysteries, and that had been the highlight. Otherwise, he was spending time at the office of one of his father's friends, learning some of the ropes. He was hoping to finish out the week before classes resumed at Emerson with a trip to the lake.

Hannah listened as she worked on dinner preparations, as Ned finished his lemonade. With a sigh he stood.

"Maybe I can call tonight, see if Nancy might need my help with anything in the next few days."

Hannah's eyes lit up. "I can think of something right now," she mentioned.

\--

The garage was in _Springville_ , of all places. Ned approached it with a raised eyebrow. According to Hannah, Nancy's car had been in need of repair after a criminal had forced it off the road and into a ditch.

The afternoon was just as unpleasantly hot here, with storm clouds promising some tantalizing relief—just not yet. Ned pulled his shirt away from his back as he went into the small office, sending a dusty bell overhead jangling an announcement of his arrival.

"I'm here to see if Nancy Drew's car is ready. Blue roadster."

The mechanic who had belatedly answered the bell grunted in answer, scrubbing a rag over his sweat-beaded face. His short-sleeved shirt and long pants bore traces of grease and oil. "Larry!" he called into the garage.

The roadster was apparently ready, but Ned was accustomed to the ritual, and walked over to it with Larry as he ticked off all he had done, hammering out or replacing damaged panels, inspecting the frame for more serious problems, meticulously replacing a glass that had shattered. Of course he had poked around under the hood and hopefully mentioned some routine maintenance that should also be done soon, but Ned shrugged that off. Mr. Drew or Nancy would decide to take care of it, probably at their home garage.

Larry sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Better tell the little lady to keep a closer eye on where she's goin' and how fast she's doin' it," he advised Ned. "She on 'er way to a sale or somethin'?" He guffawed, then darted a glance over at Ned, eyes bright over sun-ruddied cheeks.

Ned immediately bristled on Nancy's behalf. "She was forced off the road," he replied.

"Uh-huh." Larry nodded in sarcastic agreement. "Sure she was." His shoulder bumped against Ned's upper arm in what might have been accidental contact, but probably wasn't. "Keep 'er on a short leash, that's all I'm sayin', or she'll walk all over yuh." Larry nodded again, this time to himself. His jaw tightened.

Ned's did too, but for different reasons. "So this was the damaged panel?" he said instead, pointing at the car as they reached it.

After a thorough inspection—Ned didn't want Nancy coming back to this place to protest that the work hadn't been done correctly, not if he could help it—and settling the bill, Ned set off in the roadster, casting a disgusted glance back at the shop. Clearly Larry had problems with women, but that didn't mean Nancy was like them.

Then, at the wheel of her roadster, as the first rumble of thunder reached him, Ned smiled. Then he laughed aloud.

Larry had mistaken Nancy for _Ned's wife._

\--

"Oh, Ned. It was very considerate of you to pick up my car."

Ned couldn't help basking a little in the glow of her grateful smile. "I was happy to do it," he replied. "But I was surprised to hear about it. You weren't hurt, were you? When it happened?"

"Just a few bumps and scrapes." She waved it off, and Ned felt another surge of admiration for her. She was so unlike most of the women he had ever known, so mature and determined.

"Oh! It looks good as new." She turned to him with a smile after running her hand over the previously damaged door. "I hate to admit, I had my doubts when I saw the garage, but they did good work."

"Those doubts were likely well-founded. I inspected it thoroughly before I paid for the work, though, and it looked good to me."

She flashed him another grin, then turned a glowing look on her car.

He'd met her here. Oh, not at her father's house, but on the running board of her car. If it weren't for the freedom her father gave her, the trust he had in her, Ned wasn't sure if they would ever have met, but it very likely wouldn't have been at the burning Raybolt mansion.

When Ned reached for her hand, he didn't let himself think about it, and she accepted it without hesitation. "You know," he said, his voice low, "the mechanic told me that you should be more careful driving."

Nancy turned a frown on him, her eyes flashing, and Ned loved her for it. "Did he," she replied, keeping her voice politely even, but he could hear the steel behind it.

"I told him how wrong he was."

Nancy relaxed and gave him a little smile. "I'm glad to hear it."

The afternoon rain had broken the blistering heat, and Ned had been grateful for it, though it had meant a few hair-raising moments when he had been driving Nancy's car back to River Heights. Now the street gleamed under the moonlight, the rain caught in curled leaves and beading on the hood of her car.

Ned had to take romance where he could find it, with Nancy.

"He also thought I was collecting your car because we were... married."

Nancy released a peal of surprised laughter. "Well, you do look very—husbandly," she teased him gently, glancing over at his button-down shirt and fine trousers. "And not anyone would go so far out of his way just to pick up... a friend's car."

Their gazes met and held, and Ned stroked his thumb gently down the side of her hand, feeling the tingle of attraction in the air. "That's true," he replied belatedly, lost in her blue eyes. The moment held and lingered, and they both seemed to be afraid to break the spell.

Ned found that he very much wanted to kiss her.

Nancy was slightly flushed as she cleared her throat and glanced away, but she left her hand in his. "My father's been joking that soon he'll have replaced every part of my car."

Ned didn't reply. He was trying to find a way to say what was in his heart, and just didn't want to get it wrong. When Nancy turned slightly, he deflated a little, but she kept her hand joined to his as she walked a few short steps down the sidewalk, and he moved to stroll beside her.

"One more year at Emerson," she murmured, then glanced over at him. "When you graduate, I'll be eighteen."

He nodded. He had always acutely felt that three-year gap in their ages. Even though he had been instantly taken by her the moment they met, a part of him had known that she would only, somehow, grow more beautiful. And he had been right.

"When—if—we're married, would you be so understanding about my car repairs then?" Her voice was light, and she was looking straight ahead, but that flush had deepened a little more. Her father's house was behind them, two doors down; maybe she just hadn't wanted to have this conversation where he could possibly overhear.

_When._

"I would," he replied, his tone almost grave. To him, what she was saying, what she wasn't _quite_ saying, was no joke, and he didn't want to treat it as such.

They crossed the invisible line, beside the row of hedges marking the border to the next yard, and her steps slowed even more. All around them, the neighborhood was quiet. An occasional window glowed from light cast within, but most of Nancy's neighbors seemed content in the summer darkness, relaxing in the cool that had followed the storm.

"What else would you be understanding about?"

Ned took a moment to decide how to approach that. "Who you are and what makes you happy," he replied. "What your life has been, and what your life would become... in that circumstance."

"And what would it become?" She half-turned to gaze up at him, and while the moonlight painted her in silver and the suggestion of shadow, that was its own beauty.

"You would have a protector, should you have need of one," he said. "And while your father will always be that, I'm sure, you will have gained another. Someone who loves you, oh, endlessly. Someone... who would share a bed. And a heart."

Her lips curved up so slightly, and Ned's breath caught for a second.

"And what will I be asked to give in return?"

Ned took a very small step toward her, almost a sway. Her gaze dropped to his lips, then rose to his eyes again.

He felt, possibly absurdly, that he walked a razor's edge, that one misstep could cost him everything that he had only begun to allow himself to imagine.

"What would you be offering?" he murmured, his own gaze dropping to her lips and rising to her eyes again, and his voice was low, hushed, almost rough.

"Unsurpassed basket-weaving skills," she returned, her eyes dancing, and while it should have broken the moment, somehow it didn't. Despite their laughter, he still felt as though his insides were whirling, as though some barely perceptible connection linking the two of them was growing stronger by the moment. Maybe because he had never dared discuss this with her before.

"I can run a household," she said more seriously, her voice still warm from their laughter. "I'm a decent cook, but I do better with a—a Hannah. I've mastered all the accomplishments any gentlewoman was expected to a hundred years ago. Painting, music, embroidery. Ah, gardening as well."

Ned nodded in pretended thoughtfulness. "And how much livestock would you bring into any potential union?"

She grinned. "Little to none," she said mournfully. "It seems I have little to offer."

"I think you can make up for those areas where you find yourself deficient in other ways."

"Oh?"

He nodded again. "Your charm, your wit, your intelligence. Your determination and courage and ability to solve problems. Your beauty."

"Ahh. You tease me." She shook her head in sorrow.

Ned waited until she had met his eyes again to repeat, "Your beauty," without any hint of laughter in his voice. "While there's a lot more to beauty than the color of your eyes or shape of your lips, you have that as well. Surely you know that."

She glanced down again. "I try to indulge few illusions about myself."

"Then eliminate that one from your inventory. You're beautiful, Nancy. Through and through."

She blushed at him, and smiled. "I'll be eighteen next year," she said quietly.

Ned nodded.

She gave his hand a gentle squeeze, then turned to guide him back toward her home. "Maybe I'll be able to make a better offer then."

Ned's heart skipped a beat. "Maybe," he replied, keeping his tone casual. "We'll just have to see who makes the better one."

They slowed again as they approached her car, and Nancy glanced toward the house. While the porch light glowed against the dark, no one stood on the porch waiting for her; no faces appeared at the window to observe them.

"Thank you again, for..."

She made a vague gesture at her car, and when her face was turned to his again, Ned reached up to gently stroke two fingers down the line of her cheek. She didn't turn away from him, didn't step back, only gazed into his eyes, her own filled with longing.

The brush of his lips over hers was too brief, over before he could even fully capture it, but it still managed to leave him both breathless and eager for more. He found that his hand was on her shoulder, that he could feel her pulse throbbing against the base of his thumb.

Her lips were parted, her lashes low, and she looked just as dazed as he felt. When he reluctantly dropped his hand, she made a soft noise that almost sounded like a protest.

"Next year," she murmured, meeting his eyes again. He nodded once.

Then she stood on her tiptoes and brushed a kiss against his jaw, just the softest contact, before her breath touched his ear. "Good night, Ned."

"Good night," he murmured.

Only yesterday he had wondered how he would ever get through his last year at Emerson. Now...

Now, though, he could see her waiting for him at the other side.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally published elsewhere. If you enjoyed it, please consider leaving feedback!


End file.
